Ez Donk Oraindik and the Corps-Exquis: a feminist community in times of virus

Abstract

This paper presents the experiences and reflections of a feminist community of doctoral students and their supervisor, by the name of “Ez Donk Oraindik”. This group emerged with the purpose of collectivizing the individualized and solitary process of writing a thesis, accompanying one another and sharing knowledge in a horizontal way and to this end, we created a care and support network in the university research context. We perceive ourselves to be feminists and, since we are located in different parts of the world, we often use online technology as our means of communication. In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, we devised an exercise inspired by the surrealist game of the corps-exquis. This game facilitated a conversation about the different ways in which we were experiencing the pandemic and emphasized the importance of community: a shared space from which we can critically analyse our academic, personal and political undertakings.